Architecture As Building
2215b
This course examines the role of material and procedure in the formation of architecture and the physical, logistical, and environmental constraints and demands that shape the processes of construction. By evaluating the full arc of the construction process, from material extraction through the fabrication, transport, assembly, final installation, and life cycle of systems of structure and enclosure, the course seeks to illuminate the broad environmental, social, and economic impacts of construction practice and its specific implications for the formation and detailing of an individual work of architecture. In the first half of the term, a sequence of lectures surveys the conceptual concerns and technological factors of building: the origin and processing of the major classes of building materials; their physical properties, capacities, and vulnerabilities to physical and environmental stressors; the techniques used to work those materials; and the principles, procedures, and details of building assembly. Corresponding construction examples and case studies of mid-scale public buildings introduce students to the exigencies that so often influence decision-making in the technical process and inflect (and potentially enrich) design intention – regulatory requirement, physical and environmental stress and constraint, procedural complication, labor and material availability and quality, energy consumption, and ecological impact. After Spring Recess, and in coordination with the studio design phase of the Building Project, the course turns to the detailed study of light wood-frame construction and its direct application to the Building Project House and, more generally, to current American residential construction practices.
Required in M.Arch I first year, spring term.